Designing the Ultimate Challenge Course begins with you!

1. Identifying your needs is a critical first step in developing your challenge course program. CDI can provide the necessary assistance in clarifying your programming needs and budgetary requirements. Consider these questions:
• What type of organization are you?
• Who are your customers?
• What are your educational and/or programmatic goals?
• How do you foresee incorporating the ropes course into your existing program?
• What size groups will the course serve?
• What experience does your staff have in adventure programming or, more specifically, in ropes courses?
• What is your source of funding?
• What budgetary constraints do you have?
• What location are you considering for your course?
• What is your timeline for the project?
2. A detailed proposal of ideas, based on the many factors affecting design, will then be developed and provided. These factors include location, size of groups, types of groups, available staff, educational objective, and funding.
3. After reviewing the proposal, a site visit may be scheduled to further assist in tailoring the design for your facility. Further discussion will ensure that the course is created specifically for the needs and potential of your organization. A site visit is a service provided that helps us accomplish this. During this visit, an experienced CDI team member visits your facility and gathers information that will help determine the best location for the course and any further expansion. This visit would provide CDI with vital information in order to determine the detailed course design and layout that would best suit the available area. Lay of the land, availability of natural resources, dimensions of proposed area, type of ground soil, and land clearing are all factors that are considered during this process. Following the site visit, Cornerstone Designs provides a detailed course design based on your organization’s goals.
4. CDI and your organization enter into a contract and schedule the timeline for the build.
5. Construction begins for your course.
6. Training is scheduled and conducted at your course.
7. Long-term operation, maintenance, and inspection programs are developed.

Installation

Prior to the construction date, materials will arrive at the organization via tractor-trailer, UPS, and carrier trucks. This material will need to be received, inventoried, and placed in a designated area.

During installation, CDI requests that an organizational staff person be on site. This person does not have to be involved in the physical work, but will provide "local" knowledge in the event of an accident, broken tool, hardware store location, etc.

Following construction, the site will need to be mulched to minimize the amount of bare soil developing at the base of the structure(s). Bare soil can cause the safety equipment—ropes, carabiners, belay devices—to wear out more quickly. Mulching or covering the site with some type of ground cover will prolong the life of the equipment. Other programs have used quality landscaping as a method for enhancing the overall aesthetics of the site. In most cases, your program is responsible for the following aspects of your course:

• Site preparation to include: any grading to level, raise, or otherwise alter the project site.
• Access road preparation allowing for entry of heavy machinery. Examples of this could include grading down an entryway and filling with gravel or establishing culverts, gates, and gravel.
• Locating and, if necessary, re-location of any underground utilities.
• Final landscaping, including reseeding of grass, mulching of areas as needed, planting of shrubs/trees/ornamentals as needed and maintenance of access road.
• Access prevention/security of site: It is beyond CDI's scope of work to fence, or otherwise provide security to site, though some facilities choose to fence the area, either prior to, or just following construction.
• No financial contingencies will be included for poor site conditions, including but not limited to the following: sub-grade rock; high ground water level, standing water or springs; soft/unstable soils; low load bearing soils; and unforeseen subsoil debris (stumps, stump holes, old septic areas, etc.) If such conditions are incurred, expenses associated with managing these conditions will be billed at market costs.